Comparing Lord Of The Flies And Night By Elie Wiesel

984 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Comparing and contrasting characters in the Lord of the Flies

Why is it that in most superhero movies the good guys win? Because good always outshines evil. Characteristics, feelings, and actions which are commonly shared by most people is called human nature. One can easily make a statement about human nature by reading Lord of the Flies by: William Golding and Night by: Elie Wiesel. Lord of the Flies is about a group of well rounded group of British boys who survive a plane crash and find themselves the sole inhabitants of an island. Night is an honest, firsthand account about Elie Wiesel’s life in concentration camps during the Holocaust. Through these books, one can simply say humans are essentially good, even throughout the circumstances they face. Humans are essentially good because of their …show more content…

In Night, Elie’s father was on his deathbed and taking care of his father was getting tedious when Elie thinks, “If only I were relieved of this responsibility” (Wiesel 106). Through this thought of Elie one can simply say that he is evil because he wants to stop caring for his father and just leave him to die. He does not want to use his strength to fight for his father anymore. By thinking this, Elie has just hurt his father through his words, even though he may know it or not. However, what this argument fails to consider is that, immediately after he had thought that, Elie felt ashamed of himself and regretted it forever. Likewise, in the article Are Humans Good or Evil? By: Clancy Martin and Alan Strudler, they debate about whether humans are inherently good or evil. It says, in the article, “good is our normal state of being and evil is an exceptional one” (Martin and Strudler). As one can see, Elie and his father had such a good relationship before and during the Holocaust, which is the normal state. However, when his dad got sick, the thought of leaving him crossed his mind because of all the struggles he has faced taking care of his father. Throughout the Holocaust, it had drained plenty out of him and being in a concentration camp adds stress and pressure without much to look forward to each day. Therefore, it makes people think of thoughts that they would not necessarily do. Humans on the daily are good and do good, however once in awhile when they are put in certain circumstances, they do not behave like themselves and lean on the evil side. Consequently, Elie thinking of leaving his father does not show he is evil because he was put in a situation that made him feel that way, and soon he instantly felt ashamed of

Show More
Related

  • How Does Elie Wiesel Change In The Book Night

    663 Words  | 2 Pages

    Did you know you could kill 6,000,000, and capture about another 1 million people in one lifetime? In “Night” Elie Wiesel talks about the life of one of those 7 million people going into detail about the living conditions, and also talking about the experiences in the book that happened to him. The book explains how it felt to be in a concentration camp, and how it changed a person so much you couldn’t tell the difference between the dead and the living. Elie Wiesel is the author and he was only around 15 when this story happened, so this is his story and how the events in the story changed him. So in the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character , Elie, is affected by the events in the book such as losing faith, becoming immune to death, and emotionally changing throughout the course of the book.

    Read More

  • Human Relationships In Night By Elie Wiesel

    488 Words  | 1 Pages

    In his memoir, Night, author Elie Wiesel describes the horrors he experienced during the Holocaust. One prominent theme throughout the work is the evolution of human relationships within the camp, specifically between fathers and sons. While they are marching between camps, Elie speaks briefly with Rabbi Eliahu, who lost sight of his son on the long journey. Elie says he has not seen the rabbi’s son, but after Rabbi Eliahu leaves, he remembers seeing the son. He realizes that the rabbi’s son did not lose track of his father but instead purposefully ran ahead thinking it would increase his chances of survival. Elie, who has abandoned nearly all of his faith in God, cannot help but pray, saying, “ ‘ Oh God, Master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu’s son has done’ ” (Wiesel 91). In this moment, his most fervent hope is that he will remain loyal to his father and not let his selfishness overcome his dedication to his father. However, he is soon no longer able to maintain this hope.

    Read More

  • Free Will In Elie Wiesel's Night

    461 Words  | 1 Pages

    In Elie Wiesel’s Night, Elie and other Jews judge what is right from wrong by using their conscience and free will. Because of Germany’s current leader at the time, Adolf Hitler, the promise of economic reform and a stronger military infrastructure quickly turned somber as the effect of these promises impacted the Jewish community. Without a doubt, many Jews were able to tell the difference between right and wrong using their conscience and make the choice to say it based on their free will. The same principle can apply to any individual no matter how severe the situation is. In the book Night, Elie and other Jews were sent to multitudes of camps for either labor or execution. In Elie’s case, extensive labor was forced upon him and his father. Elie and his dad were

    Read More

  • How Does Elie Deal With His Father's Death

    446 Words  | 1 Pages

    In “Night” it shows through all the hardships Elie had face the only person that kept him going was his father ,because he is all he had left. For example, the family had a total of three chances to escape ,but didn’t due to the father’s role in the community. The consequence of this is that his family and numerous others are sent to the concentration camps. This effected into the separation between men and women, and is the last time young Elie will ever see his mother and his little sister ,Tzipora. This resulted in Elie not wanting to lose his father ,for he had lost all of his sisters and his mother. When Elie's father dies, Elie had no one and nothing left; all he

    Read More

  • Night In Elie Wiesel's Night

    939 Words  | 2 Pages

    The significance of night throughout the novel Night by Elie Wiesel shows a poignant view into the daily life of Jews throughout the concentration camps. Eliezer describes each day as if there was not any sunshine to give them hope of a new day. He used the night to symbolize the darkness and eeriness that were brought upon every Jew who continued to survive each day in the concentration camps. However, night was used as an escape from the torture Eliezer and his father had to endure from the Kapos who controlled their barracks. Nevertheless, night plays a developmental role of Elie throughout he novel.

    Read More

  • Character Analysis On Night By Elie Wiesel

    627 Words  | 2 Pages

    Adriana Throughout the narrative Night, the author Elie Wiesel, a young teen who was very confident in his faith, experiences multiple hardships that cause him to question what he once believed to be true. His religion stayed strong until it became obvious to him that God was causing his people to suffer. When Eliezer was just a young boy at fifteen years old, he was extremely interested in Judaism, he wanted to learn everything he possibly could. However, his father did not want him to study the Cabbala until he was thirty years old. Eliezer could not wait this long, so he sought wisdom from a man named Moshe Beadle.

    Read More

  • Night Elie Wiesel Quotes

    1135 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Night, it is discovered that atrocities and cruel treatment can make decent people into brutes. Elie himself also shows signs of becoming a brute for his survival, but escapes this fate, which is shown through his interactions with his father. Firstly, Elie’s moral side, overcoming the temptation to be a brute, is shown through his love for his father. However, despite these thoughts, he still decided to support his father, which helps him detour away from the path to being a brute.

    Read More

  • Adaption Means Survival in Elie Wiesel's "Night" and William Golding's "Lord of the Flies"

    2684 Words  | 6 Pages

    Charles Darwin, the famous evolutionist, once wrote: "In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.” It was this message that Elie Wiesel learned during his captivity in World War II and incorporated into his novel, ‘Night’. It was also this message that William Golding tried to express through the scenario of his magnum opus, ‘Lord of the Flies’. Though, in both their novels, there was another message, an idea first realized by the great psychologist and philosopher Sigmund Freud. The idea was that when man is taken away from civilization, his instincts (the id) will overpower his conscience (super-ego) and man will return to their original, primitive style of thinking. In common society, there is a word to describe the acts and feelings of a man in his primitive state, a word that takes on many different meanings depending on one’s belief, this word is evil. Both lord of the flies and Night portrays the nature of evil as something that naturally exists in the human soul which is only prevented from release by the chains of civilization. Though, once the structure of civilization is removed from the lives of men; ‘evil’ is unleashed and humans would return to their natural thinking process of the survival of the fittest. By analyzing the main characters in both novels and their experiences throughout the novels, it is proven that evil in its nature is nothing more than the acts and desires of a man in his primitive state of thinking.

    Read More

  • Night by Elie Wiesel

    682 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the book Night Elie retains his humanity because of the people he is around. If he had not been influenced by these people, he would never have made it through the camps. His father made him realize his humanity, while the french woman gave him hope. The little boy who was hanged only enforced his humanity. Elie keeps his humanity while in the camps and outside of them because he is influenced by other people. If he had been around total strangers, he would have had a much harder time keeping his humanity. Humanity is the disposition to do good even when all is lost. Elie does this throughout Night.

    Read More

  • Elie Wiesel Night Reflection

    1034 Words  | 3 Pages

    During their journey, Elie loses his father due to illness however does not feel much emotion. After witnessing his own die, Elie “did not weep” and “deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!...” (Wiesel 112). While going through the camp Buna, Elie and his father had develops a strong relationship with one another. However, after his father’s death, Elie “did not weep” and displays very little towards the event. Elie had felt that his father was a liability for his own survival and did not feel the need to weep over his death. Elie also states that he was “Free at last” showing that throughout the course of the novel Elie had thought as his father as pulling him back from survival. The reason for Elie feels this way is because Elie is still on his journey and his primary goal is to survive through the camps. Elie has become quite desperate through his journey of survival and searches the “recesses of my feeble conscience” for his most inner thoughts. Throughout the novel, Elie had been storing these thoughts in the back of mind. These thoughts include him thinking of his father as liability and him being free from him. At their first arrival at the camps, Elie and his father had been very close to one another going through their journey of survival. However, after

    Read More

  • Book Analysis: Elie Wiesel's 'Night'

    1046 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the Holocaust many people were severely tortured and murdered. The holocaust caused the death of six million Jewish people, as well as the death of 5 million non-Jewish people. All of the people, who died during this time, died because of the Nazis’: a large hate group composed of extremely Ignoble, licentious, and rapacious people. They caused the prisoners to suffer physically and mentally; thus, causing them to lose all hope of ever being rescued. In the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel, Elie went through so much depression, and it caused him to struggle with surviving everyday life in a concentration camp. While Elie stayed in the concentration camp, he saw so many people get executed, abused, and even tortured. Eventually, Elie lost all hope of surviving, but he still managed to survive. This novel is a perfect example of hopelessness: it does not offer any hope. There are so many pieces of evidence that support this claim throughout the entire novel. First of all, many people lost everything that had value in their life; many people lost the faith in their own religion; and the tone of the story is very depressing.

    Read More

  • Greed And Selfishness In Today's Book Night

    1180 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the book Night, Elie’s father was very ill and he desperately needs help from his son. His father asked for water and wanted to talk with his son, but Elie refused to talk with him and give him some water. Also, he remained calm when his father was harassed by the guards. In the book, Elie said “Then I had to go to sleep”(Wiesel 112) and after his father’s death, the thing he said wasn’t about his sadness. It was about his freedom. He said, “Free at last”(Wiesel 112). Elie is not the old Elie anymore. Because of the circumstance of the camp, the pure and caring boy changed into a boy with an empty heart. Elie says “Since father's death, nothing mattered to me anymore”(Wiesel 113). His heart that was filled with joy and caring

    Read More

  • Elie Wiesel Good Vs Evil

    641 Words  | 2 Pages

    To start, Wiesel went through the struggle of the concentration camp and watched everybody turn evil. Night showed everybody losing their faith and hope. Elie wasn't even crying or sad when his father died. He felt free. This shows that he turned evil without even knowing it. "Amd deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my freebie conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last! (Wiesel 228). Elie turns to evil for answers. At first,

    Read More

  • Reflection On The Book Night By Elie Wiesel

    536 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel remembers his time at Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Elie begins to lose his faith in God after his faith is tested many times while at the concentration camp. Elie conveys to us how horrific events have changed the way he looks at his faith and God. Through comments such as, “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God, my soul, and turned my dreams into dust,” he reveals the toll that the Holocaust has taken on him. The novel begins during the years of 1942-1944 in Sighet, Transylvannia, Romania. Elie Wiesel and his family are deported and Elie is forced to live through many horrific events. Several events such as deportation, seeing dead bodies while at Auschwitz, and separation from his mother and sisters, make Elie start to question his absolute faith in God.

    Read More

  • Comparison of The Lord of the Flies and The Man and The Boy In the Road

    1725 Words  | 4 Pages

    In both novels, the main characters are isolated from any form of true civilisation. In Lord of the Flies, the boys find themselves on a desolate island which is devoid of any human life due to a plane crash, whereas in The Road the Man and Boy live in a bleak, destroyed America in which almost the entire population has been wiped out due to an unnamed natural disaster. Because of the lack of resources and essentials, it is inevitable that the main characters have to find means of surviving – in Lord of the Flies; this is mainly through hunting and building shelter and in The Road, the Man and the Boy trek along the barren landscape in search for any remaining food they can find.

    Read More

More about Comparing Lord Of The Flies And Night By Elie Wiesel

Open Document